School administrators, the licensed professionals hired by school boards to implement their decisions and policies, have ultimate responsibility for all decisions in the school. Efficacious administrators understand they do not have sufficient expertise to make appropriate and proper decisions. They also understand reasonable implementation will also necessitate they make decisions about the limits to what technology can be purchased and what professionals can be hired. In addition, they will be negotiating and resolving situations in which there is disagreement over what priorities should be selected when making decisions.
To reduce the conflicts between what teachers want, what technologists need, and what the budget and policy allows, school leaders convene steering committees to recommend decisions and actions. The individuals who sit on technology steering committee are usually selected because have a strong vision for the organization, broad understanding of the operations of the organization, and an interest in identifying technologies that appear to be fill the gaps in how the organization is functioning and the technology that is available.
Steering committees are diverse groups comprising representatives from across the community. They have a strong vision for the organization, broad understanding of the operations of the organization, and an interest in identifying technologies that appear to be fill the gaps in how the organization is functioning and the technology that is available. It is in the work of steering committees that teachers and technicians and administrators share their own perspectives and find solutions that are mutually supportive. All teachers want technology that is secure, reliable, and robust, but there are also things they and their students must be able to do. All IT professionals want the systems they build to support teaching and learning, but they also must insist they are aligned with good principles of IT management and that they can be supported with existing capacity and expertise.
The work of the steering committee is to simultaneously negotiate appropriate design and proper configuration and reasonable implementation so that system improvement is manageable within the existing technological capacity, predictable for teachers, and sustainable at the necessary scale.